Saturday, April 08, 2006



Objectively pro-terrorism?

I saw V for Vendetta tonight, and I'm not really sure what to say about it. Yes, its adolescent fantasy about a caped-and-masked hero who overthrows an evil, totalitarian government - but its also rather more than that. V is, by any measure, a terrorist - but its difficult not to agree with his cause. The government he is fighting is, by any measure, evil and vicious and deserves to be overthrown. And therein lies the question: which do you prefer - the traditional Nazi (complete with uniforms and secret police and toture centres and death camps), or his equally monstrous, callous, torturing, nemesis?

Is it really just a question of goals and causes? Killing and torturing people for power is bad, but killing and torturing people for freedom is OK? Of course, every monster in history has claimed to be acting for noble goals - even Stalin was theoretically acting to bring about a better future in which people would be free - and this does seem to be rather writing them a blank cheque.

What can you do to oppose a government which doesn't give peace a chance, which (unlike the governments of the Phillipines and Serbia and Georgia and the Ukraine) is willing to turn the guns on its own citizens to retain power?

And if the answer to the above is to start blowing shit up, how do you put the political power back into the barrel of the gun (and plug the barrel with concrete, and throw the gun in a bottomless pit where it can never be recovered) afterwards?

Isaac Freeman has some thoughts on the latter point; V for Vendetta is a fairytale revolution - you overthrow the government, kill the dictator, and everyone lives happily ever after. Most violent revolutions don't work like that:

In reality, violent revolutions seldom, if ever, have happy endings. They have the Terror, and the Purges, and the Civil War between the factions who are no longer united against a common enemy. The revolutionaries become Stalin, or Napoleon, or Cromwell. The government, if there is one, forces disastrous upheavals on the population on ideological grounds, without reference to prior experience or basic common sense. Generally, the best thing that can happen to a revolution is that it be comprehensively defeated in an utterly demoralising fashion, so that its remaining leaders can go back to the planning stage and figure out a better way to change the world.

Non-violent revolutions, conversely, seem to work much better - except when they're mercilessly crushed beneath the treads of government tanks.

Anyway, I don't think I have an answer to the above (Alan Moore certainly didn't) - but I'd recommend seeing the film, or reading the comic, simply because it might make you think.

8 comments:

I think one needs to seperate support from belief that the person is good.
If you are a third paty watching this scenario you will probably consider what would be the outcome of you supporting one side or the other, you may find both disgusting but maybe you wish for a balance of power where the individual runs around forever killing people but not overthrowing the government or maybe you would suport a victory by one side or the other based on that causing less harm.
It is jsut more obscure because the two sides are not "good vs evil" but then again they seldom are.

then if your a non concequentialist then V is worse because he gets more torture for his buck.

Posted by Genius : 4/08/2006 09:04:00 AM

Is V equally monstrous? I don't think so. He only tortures one person, and it's for what he sees as her benefit, replicating his own transformative experience. It may have been wrong, but it was well intentioned, which is more than can be said of the goals of most torturers.

Violent revolution is acceptable and necessary if and only if the current regime uses force to crush dissent. Otherwise, either peaceful change is possible, or there isn't majority support for change.

Posted by Commie Mutant Traitor : 4/08/2006 09:46:00 AM

Is V equally monstrous? I don't think so. He only tortures one person

He does execute quite a few other people, in secret, without trial. And blow up buildings with, apparently, reckless disregard for whoever might be in or near them at the time.
Obviously if you count body bags, the government is worse than V. But I think only because the story stops before the likely consequences of V's revolution can be shown.

and it's for what he sees as her benefit, replicating his own transformative experience. It may have been wrong, but it was well intentioned, which is more than can be said of the goals of most torturers.

If there's a difference, I think it might lie in the fact that V's torturers treated him as inhuman, and it was only by accident that he made a connection with Valerie. V, on the other hand, set up Evey's imprisonment specifically so that she could receive Valerie's letters.

Still, it betrays in V a willingness to recklessly manipulate other people, even those he loves. He is a tyrant, and if he'd survived the revolution he'd have become a tyrant with supreme power.

Perhaps this attitude can be separated from the revolutionary mindset, but I think it's pretty unlikely.

Violent revolution is acceptable and necessary if and only if the current regime uses force to crush dissent.

There are certainly systems of morality which would allow this. But once revolutionaries allow themselves to be provoked into violence, they seem to find it very hard to go back.
I think part of what makes this so difficult is the fiction that conditions "before the revolution" can be cleanly separated from conditions "after the revolution". In practice, change takes time. And if you've chosen to use violence as a tool before the revolution, there's no clear line to tell you when to put it away.

Otherwise, either peaceful change is possible, or there isn't majority support for change.

I've been reading Karl Popper lately. He makes the interesting point that one of the key failures of Marxism was not recognising the degree to which capitalism could be reformed by peaceful means. Marx's grim analysis of laissez-faire nineteenth century capitalism was pretty accurate, but it turned out that the working classes had many other tools available apart from revolution, so that by the early years of the twentieth century they had achieved massive improvements in working and living conditions. Basically, open democratic intervention in the economy achieved in Western Europe what revolution in Eastern Europe could not.

Posted by Anonymous : 4/08/2006 01:59:00 PM

Every revolution is violent and every government relies on violence to stay in power. Can NRT name a revolution and a government which fits his ideal?

'Marx's grim analysis of laissez-faire nineteenth century capitalism was pretty accurate'

And is pretty accurate today in 90% of the world, ie the Third World. Today's Manchester is Shenyang. The limited gains won in the West by the labour movement are now being rolled back, and were possible in the first place only because capitalism became global in the form of imperialism, thus allowing the creation of a small privileged 'labour aristocracy' and welfare states in the West. Popper is as much an apologist for mass murder and tyranny as Stalin or Hitler.

Posted by maps : 4/08/2006 04:42:00 PM

Every revolution is violent

I agree, for certain definitions of "violent". To my mind this is a good reason to eschew the idea of revolution as a model for political change.

I'm not sure if my definition of "revolution" will line up with yours - I mean it to refer to sudden discrete political change, in which everything is thrown away and and started again, as opposed to gradual and continuous change, where you make progress from where you are now.

I'm not up on Marxist theory, but I believe the revolutionary approach is regular Marxism and the continuous approach is democratic socialism - correct me if I'm wrong.

and every government relies on violence to stay in power.

I'm not so sure of that. Governments do claim a monopoly on violence, but that's not quite the same thing.
In some systems of goverment, the process for achieving political change is built into the system itself. Popper identifies this as a definition for "democracy".

Can NRT name a revolution and a government which fits his ideal?

I can't speak for Idiot, but I can think of many governments, including our own in New Zealand, that I would say don't rely on violence to stay in power.

Revolutions, on the other hand, I think generally tend to use violence both to gain power and to maintain it afterwards.

And is pretty accurate today in 90% of the world, ie the Third World. Today's Manchester is Shenyang.

Fair enough, and I'll grant that exporting the worst conditions to the third world made it easier for capitalism to accomodate improved conditions in the first world.

But I think it's still pretty clear that revolutions all over the world have generally failed to improve real living conditions, whereas democracy has at least made considerable gains in the first world. I would say the third world has more to learn from the latter than the former.

The limited gains won in the West by the labour movement are now being rolled back,

I'm not talking specifically about the labour movement, but about the progressive, interventionist approach to social change. The labour movement is, however, a good example of its use in practice - its success has come from hard-won negotiation and honest compromise, not from violent revolution.

It's true that there are forces in opposition to this progress, but that would be true either way. I think it's better to acknowledge the existence of that opposition and attempt to shift the balance than to pretend that a revolution will ever wipe the board clean.

and were possible in the first place only because capitalism became global in the form of imperialism, thus allowing the creation of a small privileged 'labour aristocracy' and welfare states in the West.

This was certainly a factor that made it easier for governments to assert a greater degree of control over the economy. I don't think it was the only factor by any means, but even if it was, the fact remains that success was achieved by democratic means, not by revolution.

I think the third world would benefit from the same approach, exploiting whatever windows of opportunity it gets to make gradual progress. It may not be lucky enough to get a big bump like the one capitalist neo-imperialism gave to the progressive movement in the West, but I don't think that invalidates the method.

Popper is as much an apologist for mass murder and tyranny as Stalin or Hitler.

As far as I can see he devoted much of his life to demolishing the supposed intellectual foundations of tyranny. But I suppose it's possible this may have been an elaborate ruse.
It's also possible Betrand Russell used to garrote people in dark alleys for kicks.

I think Popper is sorely underappreciated as a political thinker. He does have "followers" who severely (in my opinion) distort his philosphy, but the same is true of Marx, or Adam Smith, or pretty much anybody who's ever said anything in public.

Posted by Anonymous : 4/08/2006 06:08:00 PM

It sounds like a classic revenge movie along the lines of Dirty Harry etc but made execrably portentous and pretentious by the Wachowski brothers who lost it quite soon after the first Matrix movie. (Slate did a very good review, comparing it very unfavorably to the more intelligent Brazil, with an amusing title - George Bush Ruins Another Movie - http://www.slate.com/id/2138561/)

Have you seen "A History of Violence"? Another outwardly simple revenge movie but far more subtle in its attempted analysis. Plus a very good performance by Mortensen.

Posted by Anonymous : 4/10/2006 08:38:00 AM

Er- the future Britain in VfV is
a totalitarian, neofascist state,
don't forget. What about *state*
terrorism?

Craig Y.

Posted by Anonymous : 4/10/2006 09:21:00 AM

He does execute quite a few other people, in secret, without trial.
People whom he knows for certain are guilty of atrocities because he was one of their victims, and were immune from regular prosecution. I don't have a problem with those actions, though I couldn't say that for a real life equivalent since I'd lack omniscience about the circumstances.

And blow up buildings with, apparently, reckless disregard
True. Possibly the only way to get the people's attention and demonstrate the vulnerability of the government, but it seems very likely that innocents were killed. V was a terrorist; the question is, what alternative is there for bringing down a totalitarian government?

it betrays in V a willingness to recklessly manipulate other people, even those he loves.
The love story is a silly hollywood addon. He is certainly a manipulator, but with selfless intent.

He is a tyrant, and if he'd survived the revolution he'd have become a tyrant with supreme power.
His death towards the end was intentional; he was aware that he didn't have a useful role after the revolution. I can't recall how clear it is in the movie version that he essentially committed suicide.

if you've chosen to use violence as a tool before the revolution, there's no clear line to tell you when to put it away.
V was well aware of that problem, and chose to sacrifice his life to escape it.

Posted by Commie Mutant Traitor : 4/10/2006 12:54:00 PM